Dorival hopes to have Pablo Maia and Marcos Antônio back for Botafogo | OneFootball

With another match at Morumbi ahead, São Paulo’s squad returned to training this Wednesday (20) at CT da Barra Funda and began preparations for the clash with Botafogo in the Brazilian Championship after drawing with Colombia’s Millonarios in the Copa Sudamericana on the night of last Tuesday (19).

The match against the Rio de Janeiro side will be played next Saturday (23), at 5 p.m. Brasília time, in the 17th round of the national competition.

The day’s activities were divided according to each player’s minutes against the Colombians: the players who were on the field longer did recovery work indoors, while the rest of the group went out onto the pitch for a session with Dorival Júnior’s coaching staff.

After the warm-up, which included mobility exercises and technical drills, the players took part in training focused on attacking and defensive situations: center-backs and full-backs worked on defensive line behavior, while midfielders and forwards did drills involving movement and build-up play.

After that, there was an additional attack-versus-defense exercise. The coaching staff also ran a small-sided game in which the defensive line was limited to three touches, while the attacking sector had unlimited touches.

Youngsters Igor Felisberto, Nicolas, Tetê, and Ryan Francisco did not take part in this afternoon’s training because they played in São Paulo’s 3-0 win over Criciúma in Cotia in the Brazilian Under-20 Championship.

The priority for the match against Botafogo will be to have Pablo Maia and Marcos Antônio back.

Of the two, Maia’s situation is further along, as he is regaining fitness after surgery to repair fractures to his nose and face and has been seen training normally in images released by São Paulo.

Marcos Antônio, who is in the recovery phase after a right rectus femoris injury, depends on clearance from the medical department and fitness coaches. Unlike his teammate, he is expected to be an option on the bench.

This Wednesday (21), again at CT, Tricolor will continue fine-tuning for the clash with Botafogo.

This article was translated into English by Artificial Intelligence. You can read the original version in 🇧🇷 here.